Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday July 09, 2013 @09:25AM
from the guns-are-meant-to-be-dangerous dept.

NF6X writes "UCSD Lecturer BrettStallbaum has released an Android app called Gun Geo Marker to allow people to 'Geolocate Dangerous Guns and Owners.' The app description states:
'The Gun Geo Marker operates very simply, letting parents and community members mark, or geolocate, sites associated with potentially unsafe guns and gun owners. These locations are typically the homes or businesses of suspected unsafe gun owners, but might also be public lands or other locations where guns are not handled safely, or situations where proper rights to own or use any particular type of firearm may not exist.' I question how the motivation behind developing this app differs from, say, developing an app to allow others to publicly geotag homes of people believed to belong to a particular religion or political party."

Why isn't the argument basis for geotagging potentially violent people of any stripe, no matter what their weapon of choice? Ah, it's the ideology. Bound to stir up some flamage.

You know? Yesterday, there was a bit of a protest as the local longshoremen decided to clog up our building and get noisy for a bit (the business they were protesting occupies a floor in the building). After seeing one of the protesters walking in with a sign nailed to a baseball bat (and a rather agitated look on his face), not to mention the rather battle-ready attitude of most the strikers (and then seeing this article today)? I kind of wonder why everyone fixates on weapons, when the problem is people... I mean, if the argument was about dangerous weapons, then maybe someone ought to geotag all the farmers who live next to truck stops, since a mixture of diesel fuel and fertilizer is way the hell more dangerous than a gun could ever be.

Given all of that, the argument is, IMHO, nothing more than a way to agitate for an ideology centered around what the guy considers to be a scary weapon... and nothing more. It's a means to put a stigma on gun owners that someone, somewhere thinks to be 'dangerous' (whatever that may mean) - much like one would geotag sex offenders or other 'undesireables' (in that person's mind).

Well, fair enough I guess, if that's what floats his ideological boat. Then again, I hope he can afford the potential lawsuit that would come from someone being incorrectly 'tagged'...

Stigma? My first thought was "I better tag my house" because even though I don't actually have a gun, I would like any potential thieves to think I do. Plus, where I come from (yes, Texas) gun ownership is seen as a good thing. People use their concealed carry permits as their preferred bragging type of state issued ID around here.

Most people who get shot in America are ultimately the victim of the illegal drug trade which is fueled by primarily economic factors.

If you are some white,clueless,middle-class spooner, then you have about as much chance of being shot as some Eurotrash.

Exactly. And that also gives the white, clueless middle-class a reason to be fearful and distrustful of the lower classes, and the lower classes reason to be contemptuous of the middle class. Whatever keeps them from joining up against the upper class, which is actually responsible for said laws and economic factors.

You were shouting in my face so I pushed you, you pushed me so I hit you, you hit me so I shot you. All self defence?

If you're escalating the situation then you're not practicing self-defense. That said, there is a difference between "he hit me so I shot him" and "he was about to kill or irreparably injure me so I shot him". The situation may be exactly the same, but the former reasoning is escalation, whereas the latter is (preemptive) defense.

To counter an imminent threat of irreversible harm, preemptive defense may be both necessary and justified. However, that path carries significant risks should others happen to disagree with your threat assessment.

You were shouting in my face so I pushed you, you pushed me so I hit you, you hit me so I shot you. All self defence?

the problem is that this is normal behavior for anti-gun liberals, so they assume everyone acts like this. only irresponsible, immature man-children act like this.

i carry a gun every day.i don't shout in people's faces.if you were shouting in my face, i'd attempt to extricate myself from the situation.if you pushed me, i'd attempt to extricate myself from the situation.if you hit me, i'd attempt to extricate myself from the situation.if you continued assaulting me to the point where i felt i was in danger of serious harm or death, yes, i'd shoot you.and it'd be 100% self defense.

the vast majority of gun owners that make the decision to carry a firearm (legally) are responsible people and will take every possible measure to avoid escalating situations to violence because they know what it can lead to.

"Who the hell are you to decide when an action is grounds for the death penalty?"

Just to be crystal clear, are you saying that self-defense with a weapon is never appropriate? If so, you may wish to hold forth as to why the police should be armed, or exactly what posture someone being beaten to death should take to be most noble in your eyes. Is that the fetal position, or some sort of supplication toward the east?

Maybe you have a chance to man handle a 6'2" 250lb man who's spent 5 of the last 10 years in jail working out, but my wife will use a gun to keep her and kids safe.

You say that there are situations where other self defense should be used rather than a gun, implying that some other thing can stop them, and that you would get other chances. If your or ones you care about are under serious physical threat, then you do what you have to. The best way is to avoid situations like the yelling matches (please see "

People are no the only reason to have weapons. The majority of reasons of my having to pull my gun from its holster are because of animals. I know most people here are living in cities but some people live in rural areas. With bears, wolves, mountain cats, and coyotes. One rabid animal is really all that is necessary to ruin your day or week. HOWEVER - When a persons actions show an immediate threat to me, my wife, our sons and daughters I decided when the action is grounds for the death penalty. I do not make a choice to be a victim. I do not request people to invade my house, I do not request people to randomly attempt to stab or shoot me. I do not request to be mugged or murdered at random. When a person judges my life or my loved ones to be less than their immediate need for monetary gain I deem them no longer fit to live in my immediate local.
You however may have a different opinion. You may feel it is perfectly adequate to wait 45 mins to 2 hours for a police response to a call about a person that feels your life is nothing compared to the new flat panel you have in your cabin. Or you may feel it is perfectly fine to wait for police to arrive as a mad man stabs every person that leaves a super market. Or that it is fine to allow a person to tie you to a chair and rape your family in front of you, after all you don't feel you have the right to make him stop.

...That means you get accidental deaths. And that also means that when we fail at the people end of things the damage is that much more catastrophic.

And this is less true of an SUV than it is of a gun? I don't think your distinction between items you categorize as "causes death only" and ones you categorize as "not built primarily for killing" is the most important one here.

The person you replied to made a valid, logical point about the person operating the killing device being the deciding factor in whether it causes a death. That's just as true for a driver running over her estranged lover repeatedly or plowing through a crowd at a mall in her SUV as it is for a shooter trying to see how many first graders he can kill.

That doesn't mean it's *only* the people at fault, just that they are a bigger factor than their chosen implement of destruction. Claiming "false dichotomy" is convenient and could be viewed as correct for a certain interpretation of the statements you replied to, but misses the point.

To paraphrase a fictional character from a popular movie, "A *person* is reasonable. *People* are dumb, stupid, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.", the weapon used, whether purpose-built or not, is a distant second to the wielder, in terms of what constitutes a danger.

Your opinion implies a laudible goal; the removal of guns from society. But there is a glaring error in the arguments that you and your crowd continually ignore that I would like you to address. Guns are here, that particular geinie is out of the box. You want everyone to nod in agreement that corking a tidal wave is a good idea. Just as communism attempts to remove an aspect of human nature from the equation of economics (if everyone has what they need to live a comfortable life the profit motive should be moot), your suggesting that if no one has guns, then violence will be a thing of the past. Or are you limiting your argument to gun violence? If so that suggests other types of violence are OK to you.

People often crave power over others to induce them to do something that would be beneficial to the one seeking power. Some one's always going to decide that a gun will be nessessary, and they will obtain one. And they will. I don't see simply villifying gun ownership keeping the status quo.

If you remove guns, then you would have a sword problem.If you remove sword, then you'd have spear problem.If you remove spears, then you'd have a rock problem.Get rid of rocks and it would simply be the biggest guy wins.

But a sword problem is less deadly than a gun problem, and a rock problem is less deadly than a sword problem. Yes, a dedicated psycho murderator can kill people with rocks. But, guns make it so much easier --- even a toddler can accidentally blow their (or a family member's) head off. Guns escalate violence, so, e.g., a drunken brawl that would result in a black eye or two turns into a multiple homocide when guns are available. While addressing the underlying violence problem itself is fundamental, fixing the gun problem at least significantly ameliorates the symptoms of the underlying disease.

Then there are objects built for the purpose to kill, and nothing else.

Don't pontificate from a position of ignorance - you clearly have no experience with firearms and their myriad of uses. I have fired well over 20,000 rounds through various firearms, and NOT ONCE has a single person been injured, much less been killed, from it.

I did have a mighty enjoyable time poking holes in defenseless paper, however.

The position that they're operating from is that nobody has the right to defend themselves from an assailant. You can call on the state to come and defend you and if they don't make it there in time, well... so be it. They'd see your needless death as a tragic loss, no doubt, but it would be a much better outcome than the transfer of power from the state (where all power belongs and is parceled

I am not a Gun Owner, but if I were, I don't want to be on a public list to say I am one of "those people".The biggest problem I see is a lack of Gun Education, and proper handling of a firearm. For the most part (Yes they are exceptions) the Kids who grew up with parents with a Gun and were taught how to use a gun, actually tend not to be involved in Gun crimes. Because things like "Never point a gun (doesn't matter if it is loaded or not) at or near a person", "Take the Ammo out when you're done", "Put the gun in a safe place when not in use". After training these things become such a habit, that the idea of using a gun for violence is unthinkable. But Kid often grow up in area and are not taught gun safety, and politics tell people these things are bad, and you are bad if you have on or your parents does. So once the Kid grows up a bit, he sees this gun as a source of power over other people, and not a tool that needs to be respected so he will be far more willing to point it at people and shoot people he is angry at, as he doesn't have the habit of gun safety.

I grew up with real guns and I was even told not to point toy guns at people. "What if a piece of plastic flies out of that and hits your eye?" was the common go to phrase. We now have nerf guns at work and I get anxious when someone points one of those at me fearing plastic shrapnel.

It's not that I'm afraid of guns now (I own several) but it is an example of a kid growing up with guns all around and being properly educated/aware of the dangers. I think those that have no awareness are the ones that cause real danger.

If only I had mod points - you hit the nail on the head. Lack of firearm safety EDUCATION is the biggest cause of accidental firearm deaths. Most gun illiterate people don't know they're gun illiterate - they think they know all they need to from watching TV (where some of the most egregious firearm-handling mistakes are taught to our youth).

It's disgraceful that the general public is so eager to watch (and let their kids watch) gun violence on TV, but is so unwilling to actually teach gun safety to it's youth.

The biggest problem I see is a lack of Gun Education, and proper handling of a firearm.

This a thousand times. I really wish more non firearm owners were like you who don't have the crazy fear or hatred of firearms. There does seem to be a lack of training and respect for firearms among the general population and thus firearms really are very dangerous when not handled properly because they don't have a clue what they are doing. I own firearms and keep them properly stored (large fireproof safe bolted to the concrete floor in my basement), always handle them correctly (follow all the rules from all of the various safety courses I have ever had), and show them proper respect (it isn't something to show how tough I am and isn't an extension of my cock). I also don't believe in accidental shooting as every one I have ever read about that is called accidental is really negligent or outright reckless. Now granted I could probably contrive a case that I would consider an accidental shooting but there is probably a better chance of getting struck by lightning.

"Never point a gun (doesn't matter if it is loaded or not) at or near a person"

Isn't that a bit like teaching someone they should never drive their car on or near a public road?

You've demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of the millions of people who use firearms recreationally. For those, who are the overwhelming majority, basic gun safety principals dictate never pointing a firearm at a person.

One of the reasons gun control proponents have a hard time moving their agenda forward is because they're demonstrably uninformed.

So - you DO have school shootings. All the propaganda that tells us that Europe is gun-free and safe is bullshit at the end of the day then. Rationalize it how you will, spin like crazy, you do hae school shootings.

Newsmax: The media typically spins these mass shootings as an American phenomenon. They suggest we ought to be more like Europe, with strong gun control, because then we would not have these problems. Is that true?

Dr. Lott: No. Europe has a lot of multiple victim shootings. If you look at a per capita rate, the rate of multiple-victim public shootings in Europe and the United States over the last 10 years have been fairly similar to each other. A couple of years ago you had a couple of big shootings in Finland. About two-and-a-half years ago you had a big shooting in the U.K., 12 people were killed.

You had Norway last year [where 77 died]. Two years ago, you had the shooting in Austria at a Sikh Temple. There have been several multiple-victim public shootings in France over the last couple of years. Over the last decade, you’ve had a couple of big school shootings in Germany. Germany in terms of modern incidents has two of the four worst public-school shootings, and they have very strict gun-control laws. The one common feature of all of those shootings in Europe is that they all take place in gun-free zones, in places where guns are supposed to be banned.

Newsmax: So can you give us a correlation between crime rates in jurisdictions that try to ban concealed guns and the crime rate in those that do not?

If you look over past data, before everyone that was adopting [concealed carry laws], you find that for each additional state that adopted a right-to-carry law . . . you’d see about a 1.5 percent drop in murder rates, and about 2 percent drop in rape and robbery . . . Just because states are right-to-carry doesn’t mean they’ve issued the same number of fees. You have big differences in states’ training requirements.

Newsmax: Would it be a good idea to have teachers who have concealed carry permits in the schools, to better protect kids?

I’m all for that. I’ve been a teacher most of my life. I’ve been an academic. I have kids in college still, and kids below that. It’s not something that I take lightly. But it’s hard to see what the argument would be against it.

People may not realize this, but we allowed permit-concealed handguns in schools prior to the ironically named Safe School Zone Act. And no one that I know has been able to point to a single bad thing that occurred, not one.

We changed the law, and we started having these public-school shootings. So I don’t think they got the intended result that they were hoping for with that type of ban. Right now, [some jurisdictions] allow you to carry concealed-permit guns in the schools. There are not a lot of them. But there are no problems that have occurred with any of those states, either.

Funny thing is.... your gun death rates just are not that impressive compared to ours though. Oh yes, what is it 1/2 or 1/3rd? Somewhere around there? 2 in 100 000 to like 6 in 100 000? You do realize that.000002 vs.000006....doesn't seem so big anymore.

Gun violence here, and especially school shootings, is way overblown and sensationalized. Realize that we have 100,000 schools, and that children in school are, by my own back of the envelope calculation from the numbers I looked up, much safer in school i

I did the same calculations after Sandy Hook, because I would see so many people screaming ridiculous things like "ban all guns!" or "arm school teachers!" And I looked up the stats from the department of education, and you're right, there are 100,000 schools. With an average of 180 days in a school year, and an average of two acts of gun violence at American K-12 schools per year since 2000, that basically means that 17,999,998 out of 18,000,000 school days each year, nothing bad happens.

Americans have a control fetish, where they think they can FIX AND CONTROL ALL PROBLEMS without incurring any other ill effects. If you "ban all guns," you will never find them all, and there will be law abiding citizens who would have used a weapon in self defense, who will instead be dead. So maybe you stopped a school shooting, but some shopkeeper died because he couldn't defend himself against a robber with a baseball bat. If you arm the teachers, fine, maybe those schoolmarms will instantly morph into SEAL Team 6 when some nut shows up at the school with a gun and take him out. But there will be another 1 in a million day when a teacher flies off the handle and shoots somebody, or fails to lock up the weapon safely and a kid gets a hold of it and kills himself or some kid on the playground.

The law of intended consequences always bites you in the ass. When the statistic is down to 2 in 18,000,000, you can't really do anything to fix those last two without causing something else awful to happen, instead. The answer isn't to turn schools into fortresses or to snatch every gun in America. The correct response to a school shooting is to weep, hugs your kids tighter, ask everyone to keep an eye out for friends or family who might be having mental problems and try to help them, mourn the dead, never forget them, and move on with life.

This has nothing to do with recent history. Peasants have had no rights pretty much forever in Europe. That is why people have fled to the other side of the pond. They wanted to get away from being owned by a King or a local robber baron.

Right, I'm sure one of the considerations of the deranged minds who take a gun to school is "uh, could I possibly be shot back at?". What you're saying sounds like a thinly veiled NRA talk point, like the idiotic meme that "a hero with a gun could have avoided [whatever]".

Ok, I have to call FUD on that.The choice of venue is closely related to the motivation of the perp (well, d'uh right?), but that does not imply a causative link between choice of venue and whether or not the venue has stricter than normal gun control. In fact, if that was the case you would expect to see a lot more mass shootings in Europe than in the States, simply based on the much stricter weapon control policies in the former.

On the topic of motivation, just for you to have some actual research to look

I'm not disputing the fact that someone with a gun can aim and kill someone else with a gun, but whether or not it makes a difference to A) the mass murderer, B) the people already killed. You're very focused on statistics, and response times, but the topic of the discussion (at least the part I replied to) was whether the threat of death would be a show stopper for a mass murderer. The "research" you linked to shows clearly that that is not the case,

As I replied to another poster in a sub-thread to this one, I'm not arguing that a person with a gun can aim that gun and kill another person who also has gun, but that the solution proposed always has at least one death (the shooter's first victim, or in extreme cases the shooter himself).

I'm also challenging the belief that the threat of death is a deterrent to would be mass murderers, it seems that whenever someone produces a link in this thread, it supports my assertion that this is not the case. That i

Not as dangerous as lecturers at public universities. I think I will write an app that allows you to geotag your local professors, track their license plates, and give you hints and tips on how to heckle them and ruin their lives for doing things that you may or may not agree with.

Because its not like you couldn't call the police if people are doing unsafe things with guns. In a lot of places there are laws about the safe handling of weapons.

Not as dangerous as lecturers at public universities. I think I will write an app that allows you to geotag your local professors, track their license plates, and give you hints and tips on how to heckle them and ruin their lives for doing things that you may or may not agree with.

Exactly...and who's deciding who these "suspected" unsafe gun owners are? Sounds like nothing better than a malicious rumor mill app to me. Let's just start something similar for everyone we think is a closet alcoholic or the like...I mean FFS...

Because its not like you couldn't call the police if people are doing unsafe things with guns. In a lot of places there are laws about the safe handling of weapons.

Exactly!...instead we have people with a clear anti-gun agenda taking a total vigilante approach to this...oh the irony.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. In my area, we have waited for thirty minutes and more for emergency personnel to arrive where they are needed. I sat with three badly burned boys for half an hour, before a first responder arrived, followed soon after by a policeman.

Had someone not already called for police and ambulance services, I would have loaded those boys into my car, and driven to the hospital. Ignoring posted speed limit signs, I could have had those boys at the regional medical center in about 25 minutes, where they would have received trauma unit care immediately upon arrival.

Because its not like you couldn't call the police if people are doing unsafe things with guns. In a lot of places there are laws about the safe handling of weapons.

And yet the "you can just call the police" argument somehow becomes unacceptable when used to justify banning firearms outright.

Well hold on here. I wasn't talking about someone using a firearm to threaten or to attack. I am talking about people that are just being stupid with firearms (open carrying, what have you). If someone is shooting at you, neither the app nor the police are going to do you any good. You'll either have fled or been hurt long before either do you any good. And lets not forget that the police have no legal obligation to protect you or your property. The point I am trying to make is that this app has nothi

Well hold on here. I wasn't talking about someone using a firearm to threaten or to attack. I am talking about people that are just being stupid with firearms (open carrying, what have you).

A bullet doesn't care if it was discharged intentionally or accidentally. If a firearm is being handled in an unsafe manner, someone can be maimed or killed.

And note that open carrying is perfectly legal in many states, so calling the police wouldn't accomplish anything there regardless.

Ok lets start here. First of all, even if open carrying is legal, that does not mean that the police will not come and investigate and also express the concerns of the neighbors to the gun owner. Secondly. A bullet cannot be accidentally discharged unless you are brandishing the weapon, which is most certainly illegal except under certain circumstances (when lawful for self-defense, at a properly zoned and designated firing range, etc). If it is in a case, a safe, a holster, or anything like that, the f

Because its not like you couldn't call the police if people are doing unsafe things with guns. In a lot of places there are laws about the safe handling of weapons.

And I'm sure the police and those laws were a great comfort to all of those victims of gun violence and rampage shootings, and 100% effectively prevented any deaths.

Gun laws don't prevent gun violence [nbcchicago.com] as criminals are already breaking the law. [theblacksphere.net] However if one of the victims [news4jax.com] had been allowed to carry [ktvn.com] his weapon legally there might have been far fewer casualties. [citizensvoice.com]

Because its not like you couldn't call the police if people are doing unsafe things with guns. In a lot of places there are laws about the safe handling of weapons.

And I'm sure the police and those laws were a great comfort to all of those victims of gun violence and rampage shootings, and 100% effectively prevented any deaths.

Oh I didn't realize this app was to help me avoid public shootings. Here I was thinking the point of this app was to demonize, harass, and annoy people who own guns. Right. Ok I will be sure to pull this app out next time I am worried about a school shooting.

And yet, it is sitting at +5 Insightful. I don't know if that means that some people are playing a meta-joke game or if Republicans really do find lies insightful if they match their agenda, so I'll leave that decision to you.

Perhaps you are being sarcastic, but (from Wikipedia, highlights mine):

Records show that Loughner was registered as an Independent and voted in 2006 and 2008, but not in 2010.[39][40] A YouTube channel under an account called "Classitup10" was linked to Loughner. (There have been numerous copies of 'impostor accounts' such as 'JaredLoughner' and 'Classitup1O'.)[41][42]

Loughner's high school friend Zach Osler said, "He did not watch TV; he disliked the news; he didn't listen to political radio; he didn't take sides; he wasn't on the Left; he wasn't on the Right."[17] But a former classmate, Caitie Parker, who attended high school and college with Loughner, described his political views prior to 2007 as "left wing, quite liberal,"[43] "radical."[44]

Yes, Guns are just as dangerous as matches, driving a car, running with scissors and swimming in a public pool.

All of these things kill people. In fact, (PDF link) fire, drowning and car accidents [cdc.gov] kill more people per year than anything else. Actually, that's not true. Matches, Cars and Swimming pools kill nobody if they are left just sitting there. It takes human interaction to actually make these objects dangerous.

You beat me to it. I guess people are smart enough to write ZOMG think of the children apps but aren't smart enough to remove redundant adjectives.

On another note, something more insidious from either this app or this article's title is the following: Dangerous Guns and Owners. What is "dangerous" being applied to here? Is just describing guns as dangerous (which is idiotically redundant) or does it stand for "dangerous guns and dangerous owners"?

More importantly, what about this:

These locations are typically the homes or businesses of suspected unsafe gun owners,

How do you determine if a home or business contains an unsafe gun (or unsafe gun owner, whatever the fuck that means)? How do they become suspect? What warrants people to be tracked over a mere suspicion? Funny how the right to privacy is shunned equally by the left and the right (and every punk in between) wherever it turns to be ideologically convenient.

I for one don't care if someone were to track me and label me unsafe.

Bolt action rifle with good enough caliber to take anything in the North American continent? Check, locked and with the bolt disassembled.

Revolver? Check, with a trigger combination lock.

Ammo? Check, plenty of it, locked and secured.

But hey, don't let that stop you (the generic you) from suspecting me of being dangerous or unsafe or whatever adjective that makes you feel safe and progressive and in charge of doing something positive for society or some shit like that. Once I add a 12ga scatter gun and a 1911 to my collection, that Android app is going to go beep-pause-beep-pause-beep-beep-beep-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep like Ripley's tracking device back on LV-426.

Here's a gedankenexperiment for you: imagine a gun sitting on the floor in the middle of a room. Now, try to think of all the ways that gun could cause harm to someone, without their direct intervention (i.e., picking the gun up and pulling the trigger).

Let me know if you come up with anything better than, "someone might trip over it."

Not to troll of anything, but since when was there an established priority in amendments? Perhaps I'm asking out of ignorance, but I always figured all amendments to have equal priority and enforcement, except where they collide (...which leaves the courts to sort out depending on circumstance, motive, etc.)

I'm not suggesting gun control is the cause of that, just pointing out that it's a purely manufactured crisis. Chicago isn't among the top 50 most dangerous cities in the world. [wikipedia.org] New Orleans has four times the murders Chicago does. San Pedro Sula has TEN times as many murders. Chicago isn't as safe as, say, rural Japan, but it's not "dangerous" compared to most other places in the US. More people die of texting while driving than die by guns in Chicago.

Simple things like increasing or decreasing the number of guns isn't going to really affect crime rates unless you go to extremes. Successfully eliminate the vast majority of guns or arm everyone and then you'll see changes in crime, either for the better or worse I don't claim to know. Debating concealed carry laws or waiting periods is a waste of time. As you said, criminals don't follow laws. And both sides of gang wars are armed, yet it's not proving a deterrence to violence. Suggesting that more guns = lower crime assumes that criminals will act rationally. Kids in gangs certainly don't act rationally.

And yet they still manage to shoot and kill civilians! Oh wait, those are "potential terrorists" and "collateral damage" (yeah, some guys were firing some weapons in the air, so we blew the shoot out of them, what do you mean that's how they celebrate weddings? what sort of fucked up culture celebrates weddings by having the shit blown out of them?).

I question how the motivation behind developing this app differs from, say, developing an app to allow others to publicly geotag homes of people believed to belong to a particular religion or political party.

It differs because a list of people belonging to a religion or political party doesn't help you if you need to find a gun in a hurry.

We end up with old dudes in suburbs getting tagged because somebody saw an antique rifle hanging on the wall during a dinner party and luckily could still start the app on their iPhone with their trembling hands, while gang-affiliated teens in urban neighborhoods go untagged because nobody cares about 5000+ black/latino teenagers getting shot every year, it's the 20+ white babies every year that we need to save.

People with a lot of pressure cookers "has the means to kill a lot of people"People with a car bomb "has the means to kill a lot of people"People that strap bombs to little children "has the means to kill a lot of people"People that hijack planes "has the means to kill a lot of people"People that make (insert favorite gas or poison) has the means to kill a lot of people"--When your 'nutjob with a knife' is slicing your daughter up, I trust you would not resort to a horrible gun to stop him and you would of

"As a crowd sourced information tool, the information about dangerous gun sites comes from users." In other words, if I have a grudge against my neighbor, or just want to mess with somebody, can I just post that they are "dangerous" and their home/location appears in the app??

"As a crowd sourced information tool, the information about dangerous gun sites comes from users." In other words, if I have a grudge against my neighbor, or just want to mess with somebody, can I just post that they are "dangerous" and their home/location appears in the app??

In other words, this will last until the first politician gets tagged.

A long time ago, some people at UT Austin put signs in front of dorms listing "potential rapists" that had the names of all male residents. Indiscriminate and unsubstantiated accusations do not serve a useful purpose.

OK, Slashdotters, who wants to help me make a geotagging app that crowdsources locations of people and businesses who are NOT gun owners so that legitimate users can use this as positive reinforcement of the anti-gun ideal?

It will allow users to personally thank those non-gun owners (and businesses) for their thoughtfulness toward others and their pacifist approach toward dealing with an increasingly dangerous and violent world.

It will allow users to personally thank those non-gun owners (and businesses) for their thoughtfulness toward others and their pacifist approach toward dealing with an increasingly dangerous and violent world.

I understand your sentiment, but it's really a much less dangerous & violent world than compared to even 10 years ago.

Hadn't you heard? After a persistent astroturfing campaign, more Americans think Edward Snowden is a traitor than otherwise. They're obviously fine with a surveillance state, so this app is perfectly acceptable.

Right?

I'd like to see the results of a survey that correlates opinions of Snowden with opinions about this database. Wanna bet there's a substantial overlap of people who can simultaneously believe Snowden is a traitor while believing this database and app are wrong? While being blissfully unaware of the contradiction.

And why can't snowmen be both/and instead of either/or? I know dualistic is lens most of the West uses, thanks Descartes, but this is a both/and. Snowden can very much be the hero for letting the public know about the various domestic and likely unconstitutional spy programs and a traitor for revealing certain details of foreign intelligence operations and at the same time.

Although at this point I'm pretty sure most people already knew or at least suspected that the government were doing such surveillance

On the one hand, I think gun owners would be justified in fearing real-world repercussions from being listed in this database. (Some might see it as a benefit, deterring burglary etc.) In fact, it's not only gun owners who ought to worry, since as others have pointed out, the data in the app can be based on imagination or lies.

On the other hand, it's hard to see how anyone could *stop* people writing apps like this and uploading data to them.

This is a great example of why I think privacy is a right. Maybe that was the whole point.

In case it's not obvious from the tone and content of my post, I Am Not a Lawyer.

I question how the motivation behind developing this app differs from, say, developing an app to allow others to publicly geotag homes of people believed to belong to a particular religion or political party.

There's one obvious difference: This kind of paranoia and bigotry is popular among left-leaning types, so it's all good.

How is this insightful in a country where 90% of convicts never even get a trial? Most people are not proven anything in court, most people are threatened with so many charges and years in jail that they will plead guilty whether they are actually or not rather than take a chance of ending up behind bars for a significant portion of their life.

You do realize that in the US "Invasion of Privacy" is perfectly legal as long as the invaders aren't the government? The first amendment says that if I find something out about you legally you have no right to stop me from telling everyone else about it.

Libel could conceivably be an issue, but a) the safe harbor provision should protect him, and b) if the person saying it believes it to be true it's not libel. Since many, many Americans define unsafe gun ownership to mean any gun ownership it's gonna be mighty tricky to prove that they should have known that keeping the damn things unloaded in a gun safe is safe.

That last bit is also why the list won't be terribly useful. If people start using it it will basically be a map of suspected gun-owners, because most people who post to something like that don't know/care whether you've got the damn things locked up in a case or not.

What world do you live in? Police don't just raid a house because of some tag on Google Earth. What nonsense. You think we have a fleet of detectives monitoring Facebook in case someone posts "committin' a crime right naw!" And we announce ourselves so the homeowner would have no doubt it's the police and not some "intruder breaking down their door at 3am."!

What world do you live in sir? Clearly not the same one the rest of us do.